Lew: Debt Ceiling Will Be Raised

The Hill reports:

Obama Budget Director Jack Lew said Monday evening that he does not envision any chance that the debt ceiling will not be raised by Congress by the time it is reached in August.

“I think now having been in quite a number of meetings with the leaders of the House and Senate I think there is shared understanding that it is just unthinkable for us to default,” he told The Economic Club of Washington. “I can't argue that it will be pretty. Things very rarely happen early in Washington.”

Lew noted that he had had not thought there would be an April government shutdown when Democrats and Republicans could not agree on a 2011 spending bill, and he had been proven right then.

Congressional Republicans have publicly demanded trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.